Follow the link at the bottom of this post for some FREE downloadable word family cards that you can use to help your primary students learn some basic phonics patterns. First, a quick review: What are onsets and rimes? An onset is the consonant(s) before the vowel(s) in a syllable: /m/ in mind /str/ in street Not all syllables have an onset (it and and do not have onsets). A rime (A.K.A. a phonogram) is the first vowel in a syllable and whatever follows: /ind/ in mind /eet/ in street All syllables have a rime. Why should we use them in our word study instruction? Onsets and rimes are important because: they are the most psychologically accessible units of sound that may be mapped to a spelling pattern (Goswami, 1996). rimes (also referred...